Wok's For Dinner: Grilled Zucchini

In my quest for finding many uses and recipes for squash and zucchini (you know, 'cause it's coming out of my ears), I've been trying really hard to make sure that nothing goes to waste. Since we're up to our eyeballs in squash, and it doesn't look like there's much of an end in site, then by golly, I'm going to mak sure it lasts all year long, or at least give it a good try! And while we're at it, we're not going to have it prepared the same ol' usual way. Nope. Gonna try new recipes and new ways of preservin' and cookin' up squash.

Like the other night, my daughter helped me slice and chop the summer squash so we could freeze it. I did straight up slices, crinkle-cut slices, cubes and pie-shaped cuts. That way, when it's time to cook it, we have a variety of shapes and sizes to choose from. Different, right? Here's what we were able to put into the freezer.

And tonight was zucchini night, to go along with the Chicken Fajita Crescent Braid we had for supper. Like the summer squash above, I wanted something different, so I decided to try my hand at Grilled Zucchini when I made my menu for this week. Except for one little problem. The propane is empty for our grill, so I couldn't actually make grilled zucchini.

I could, however, bake it.

It's the heat that cooks the zucchini, so it didn't necessarily have to be done on a grill, right? At least, that was my theory.

So I gave it a try, and it turned out great! It was nice to prepare zucchini in a new and different way, and it didn't hurt that it tasted great, too. :)

Grilled Zucchini

Ingredients:
1 large zucchini (ours was really, really large)
3-4 Tbsp butter or margarine
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Lay out 3 or 4 long strips of foil on top of each other. Wash outer skin of zucchini and pat dry with paper towel. Slice zucchini lengthwise into quarters (our zucchini was so large I had to slice it into more than 4 lengths) and place on top of foil. Put a little pat of butter on each zucchini quarter, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Wrap all the zucchini, butter, salt & pepper up with the foil.

Seal up the edges of the foil. My daughter took this picture below. She's really developed a fascination with my camera.

Fold over the foil edges until you have something that looks like a really big metallic burrito.

Place foil-wrapped zucchini on a baking sheet, place in oven, and bake for 30 minutes. After removing from oven, carefully open foil to allow some of the steam & heat to release. Test zucchini with a fork for tenderness. If necessary, fold foil back up & return to oven to bake an additional 5 minutes or so until zucchini is fully cooked (I had to do this such it was such a large zucchini).

Kind of looks like pickles!